Meat Hook's high range allows Pudge's team to drag Zeus in the middle of the fight and abuse his frailty.

Flesh Heap's health and magic resistance bonus makes Pudge exceptionally resistant to Zeus' nukes. In later stages of the game, Zeus is usually unable to seriously damage Pudge at all. Even Static Field, which deals damage based on a percentage of the enemy's health, won't be doing much.

Even though Pugna's low HP means that he can be quickly be bursted down, his Nether Ward heavily punishes casters whose spells cost a lot of mana, like Zeus. Casting 4 of his active spells, including Nimbus, close to an enhanced level 4 Nether Ward, can make the ward deal up to 1750 magical damage.

Decrepify can further increase the damage dealt by Nether Ward upon Zeus. However, if used on Pugna himself or on one of his allies, it will amplify the damage done by Zeus' abilities.

Zeus can deal a huge amount of damage, but he lacks defensive abilities, such as good mobility or resistance. Due to that, he doesn't like to be touched by any means. Heroes with higher damage output and good mobility will often get easily near Zeus and trade damage (eventually causing Zeus's downfall). Such Heroes include: Lycan, Slark, Storm Spirit, Spectre and others.

Arc Lightning and Lightning Bolt have very low cooldowns, which will provide plenty of charges for Magic Stick or Magic Wand.

The magic resistance from Cloak, as well as it's upgrades, Hood of Defiance and Pipe of Insight, will greatly reduce the effectiveness of Zeus's abilities since they are all magical. Notice that these items have separate cooldowns and stack their magic resistance bonuses, so don't hesitate to buy a Pipe and another Hood on top if one of them is not enough. Also more than one person buying a Pipe is sometimes useful, keep in mind though that the actives don't stack.

Glimmer Cape works as well, but keep in mind that Zeus can easily reveal you out of invisibility with Lightning Bolt and Thundergod's wrath. However, it enables the wearer to avoid Thundergod's Wrath's damage.

Reactive Armor will not trigger from Zeus's spells or protect Timbersaw from their damage.

Early game Timbersaw's strength is average and Zeus can heavily aid in bursting him down.

Late game, if Timbersaw has built a lot of HP items, Zeus's passive Static Field will be more effective at chipping away Timbersaw's large HP pool.

A Timbersaw who builds Pipe of Insight will be much more difficult to kill, as Zeus has no way to hold Timbersaw down, but Timbersaw will have less armor, mana, and damage than normal if he buys this item early game just to counter Zeus.

Any ally that Winter Wyvern tries to save with Cold Embrace can still be damaged by all of Zeus's spells.

If Winter Wyvern tries to juke vision by flying up a cliff or in the trees, Zeus can gain vision there with Lightning Bolt or Thundergod's Wrath.

If Zeus is forced to attack an ally by Winter's Curse, his unimpressive attack damage and attack speed means they won't be hurt much by him. Zeus will also stay near the back of fights away from his allies, making a deadly Curse less likely.

Zeus has one of the highest damage outputs in the game, but he can be easily countered if enemies are allowed to farm items like Black King Bar and Pipe of Insight. Zeus is thus very effective early and mid game against heroes that have to build certain items that aren't good against him, such as illusion heroes that have to build Radiance or agility items. Another being initiators that have to rush Blink Dagger.

Heroes with mediocre health pools who rely on armor or evasion to survive fights such as Troll Warlord, Windranger, and Terrorblade can be killed by Zeus if caught off guard.

Heroes that avoid damage by coming in and out of invisibility in teamfights such as Weaver, Templar Assassin, and Riki will be easy for Zeus to reveal with Lightning Bolt and Thundergod's Wrath, but these heroes usually have other ways to avoid his damage or kill him, so he is not a perfect counter alone.

Zeus is good against heroes that juke in trees or up cliffs, like Batrider, Monkey King, Spectre, and Tinker, by providing vision in any area with Lightning Bolt, or guaranteeing vision on enemies with Thundergod's Wrath.

Zeus's Lightning Bolt give's temporary True Sight in a 750 radius. This allows Zeus to check if there are any Remote Mines in that area or to deward.

Arc Lightning or Lightning Bolt can be used to disable a Linken's Sphere due to their cheap cooldown.

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